Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
Herr Duehring is staggered at once. In fact, he stammers, "There is no
proof of the actual existence of that original condition. Let us
remember that this is also the case with each new step in the series
with which we are acquainted. He therefore who will make difficulties
in the foregoing case may see that he does not avoid them in the
smaller apparent cases. Besides, the possibility exists that there are
successively graduated intermediate states inserted, and thus there is
a stable bridge by the means of which we can work backwards to the
solution of the problem. As a matter of fact this notion of stability
does not assist the main thought, but it is for us the fundamental
form of regular progression, and of each transition known so far, so
that we have a right to consider it as intermediate between the first
original state and its disturbance. But if we consider the independent
condition of equipoise from the point of view of mathematical concepts
as, admittedly, without independent existence, there is no need of
indicating the mode in which matter came into a dynamic condition."
Outside of the mechanics of matter a change in movement of matter
depends upon a change in the movement of the most insignificant
particles. "Up to the present we have no universal principle of
knowledge and we must therefore not be surprised if we are somewhat in
the dark as to these matters."
That is all that Herr Duehring has to say, and we should seek the very
pinnacle of wisdom not alone in a mutilation of the creative faculty,
but in blind superstition, if we were to let the matter pass with
these foolish evasions and statements. Absolute stability has no power
of change in itself, Herr Duehring admits this. The absolute condition
of equipoise possesses no means by which it can pass into a dynamic
state. What have we then? Just three false and foolish phrases.
In the first place, Herr Duehring says that to show the transition
from each most insignificant step in the chain of things with which we
are acquainted to the next presents the same difficulty. He seems to
think that his readers are infants. The proof of the transitions and
interrelations of the most insignificant links in the chain of
existence is just what constitutes the subject matter of natural
science. If there is an impediment anywhere, nobody, not even Herr
Duehring, thinks to explain the development as proceeding from
nothing, but on the other hand as only proceeding from transition,
change, and forward movement from a completed evolutionary stage.
Here, however, he undertakes to show with reference to matter that it
proceeds from absence of movement and therefore from nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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